27.9.16

AfDB Offers Nigeria $1 Billion Loan to Finance 2016 Budget Deficit

Nigeria got a lifeline on Monday as the
African Development Bank (AfDB) said it would support the country with
the sum of $1 billion to help it address the N2.2 trillion deficit in
the 2016 budget.

AfDB President, Akinwunmi Adesina, who
disclosed this to State House correspondents after meeting with Vice
President, Yemi Osinbajo, and the Economic Management Team‎ (EMT) at the
State House, Abuja, said the facility would attract a 1.2 per cent
interest.‎

This is Adesina’s first official visit to his country of origin since he became president of the bank last year.

‎He said that between 2016 and 2017 the
bank would provide ‎the sum of $4.1 billion to Nigeria to fund power,
infrastructure, agriculture and the private sector and the Small and
Medium size Enterprises financing and lending scheme.

Adesina said the bank’s‎ lending portfolio in Nigeria would grow to a total of $10 billion by 2019.

Disagreeing with those saying Nigeria is
in a debt crisis, the AfDB president said Nigeria was only experiencing
liquidity problem.

He said the bank recognised that power
remained the most important challenge driving inflation in the country
and had therefore decided to invest in a total of 1,400 megawatt of
projects this year and 1,387 megawatt of project by 2017 to revamp the
energy sector.

Adesina said, “We have a very strong
delegation team to meet the Vice President and the economic management
team, because the bank’s (ADB) largest shareholder is Nigeria.

“It is very important for me to be here
and to talk to the Nigerian government about the challenges and
opportunities that are in Nigeria. I think the times are difficult there
is no doubt about that, but I want to commend the government for being
bold in taking the right decisions. I think that the fact that the price
of crude oil has gone down is a big challenge because you have 98 per
cent external forex revenue coming from the sector. So it has created
calibrations, I’m not going to go into the details of all the problems
but what is important is that what we going to do about it.

“I’m not here to lecture the Nigerian
government; I’m here to support very strongly. We have said that we are
going to support the Nigerian government with the budget support to be
able to deal with some of the fiscal imbalance that they have.

“We are looking to consider for an award
$1 billion to help to deal with that particular deficit. In addition to
that, there are other challenges that the economy has in terms of
diversifying and deepening the level of diversification in critical
sectors; so agriculture, solid minerals, manufacturing as well as
industrial sector are very important. So the bank is going to provide in
total between 2016 and 2017 $4.1 billion to Nigeria in various sectors
such as power, infrastructure and agriculture and for the private
sector, the SMEs’ financing and lending.

“I expect that our portfolio in Nigeria
will not decrease; it will actually grow. We expect to invest in Nigeria
by 2019 a total of $10 billion.

“So let me just say that the issues that
we think are important are the need to further deepen the
diversification of the rest of the economy, and the macro-economic
stability as well as fiscal stability in the country. We have asked for
the need for better synergies between the macro policy side and monetary
policy side and also the fiscal policy side of the economy.

“And, of course, we also recognize that
power is perhaps the most important challenge that is driving inflation
in the country. So we expect in our portfolio this year to invest in a
total of 1.400 megawatts of projects to focus on the energy sector and
by 2017 we plan to invest in 1,387 megawatts of project for the sector.”